Bangkok – Thailand – 17 January 2022 –Mazda reveals that its sales performance in 2021 was over 35,000 units or accounted for 5% market share. The passenger car, Mazda2 was the best-selling model, followed by three models in the CX-Series that were recently launched to the market in the last quarter of 2021. As a result, Mazda’s sales in December reached to 3,750 units, in particular, the CX-30 and CX-3 were able to achieve the highest record since they were introduced to the Thai market. In addition, Mazda prepares to welcome Tiger year by unveiling 4 new models to the market in all segment to stimulate the market since the beginning of the year. To begin with CX-3, Mazda2 and prepare to unveil CX-30 and Mazda3 in the first quarter of this year and enhance the quality of aftersales service at the same time. Mazda sets 2022’s sales target at more than 40,000 units or increase by 10%, accounted for over 5% market share. 

Mr. Chanchai Trakarnudomsuk, President of Mazda Sales (Thailand) Co. Ltd., said, “2021 is another challenging year for automotive industry as there were many external and internal factors affecting the business operation. Especially, the pandemic of Covid-19 and shortage of supply for semi-conductor that were considered as main factors affecting world economy since the beginning of the year. At a result, it led to main industry slowdown in the past year. With government relief measure and cooperation from Thai people, on the contrary, businesses were able to recover and could move forward to the end of the year and the Thai automotive sales volume decreased slightly as expert expected.” 

For the Thai’s automotive market in 2021, the industry’s cumulative sales was 762,000 units (estimated number) or decreased slightly at 4% which was in line with Mazda’s vehicle sales that was set at 40,000 units. Due to worldwide spread of Covid-19 and lockdown measure in Thailand, business trend and world economy were not as good as expected. In a meantime, Mazda was able to achieve cumulative sales at 35,385 units, which decreased slightly by 9.8% from 2020. However, it was still considered as the highest sales volume in the ASEAN region and new emerging market. Mazda’s cumulative sales can be divided into 19,799 units of passenger car (decreased by 20.2%), 14,225 units of crossover SUV (increased by 21.4%) and 1,361 units of pick-up truck (decreased by 49.7%) and had a market share at 4.6%.

Mr. Chanchai added, “The unveiling of new models and the update of products in order to create newness to both passenger and crossover vehicles resulting Mazda to had sales in December at 3,750 units (highest record in FY2021). It can be divided into the CX-30, the crossover SUV that gains a high popularity from customers since it was launched to the market, with a cumulative sales of 1,255 units (highest record since it was launched). The second best-selling model was Mada2 which had a total sales of 1,059 units, followed by the CX-3 or the most popular model featuring new body color, “Platinum Quartz” that was just launched to the market, which had cumulative sales of 750 units (hit the highest record since it was launched). In addition, the Mazda3 contributed another 137 units, followed by 192 units of Mazda CX-8, which is the crossover SUV that comes with new choice of 6-seat gasoline engine and another 137 units of the CX-5. In addition, the Mazda BT-50 pick-up truck became popular again with cumulative sales of 211 units and another 1 unit of MX-5.”

Mr. Chanchai also revealed his vision toward the direction of Thai economy and Thai automotive industry, “Mazda expected that the Thai automotive industry will increase about 5-10%. However, it depends on government measure toward tourism support, price of agricultural products and the pandemic of Omicron variant of Covid-19, which is the most important factor as it is uncontrollable. In this year, it is expected that the automotive market will recover in the first quarter as we foresee from the increase of sales in December, which is the indicator showing customers’ confidence and needs to purchase new cars. For Mazda, we foresees that we will be more successful in this year and we set the sales target to increase at least 10% or has more than 40,000 units of cumulative sales and achieve more than 5% market share.”

Mr. Thee Permpongpanth, Senior Vice President said about the marketing strategy, “Mazda was successful in the past year and we were able to support the business and achieve sales target though there were many obstacles to overcome. Importantly, every new model had received overwhelming feedback from customers. Although Mazda did not launch new models to the market in the first half of the year, Mazda launched the CX-5 and the CX-8 in October and the CX-3 in December. The three models were very popular among Thai customers and were able to drive Mazda’s sales in December and achieve 3,750 units.”

“For 2022 strategy, we plan to increase our competitiveness and prepare for the economic rebound. Especially, the expansion of used car business, “CPO” or Mazda Certified Pre-Owned that has a standard and guaranteed from Mazda which we aim to open 9 new outlets nationwide. We will focus on product technology, marketing, sales, services, and network expansion to meet the increasing number of customers and meet the changing behavior of customers. Also, we will continue focusing on online marketing strategy to meet the exact needs of the customers in this digital era.” Mr. Thee added.